


Lapse

by emmerrr



Series: To live will be an awfully big adventure [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew POV, Canon Compliant, M/M, Scene re-telling?, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9607970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerrr/pseuds/emmerrr
Summary: A bit of Andrew introspection between his and Neil's first and second kisses.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring actual dialogue from The King's Men because I used actual scenes from the book. Such a sucker for Andrew's POV though, even if it is so difficult to write!
> 
> Thanks for reading <3

Admittedly, kissing Neil is somewhat of a lapse in judgment on Andrew’s part, which is strange, because Andrew isn’t usually prone to lapses in judgment. How very like Neil to wriggle his way through all of Andrew’s carefully cultivated defenses.

How inconvenient.

Andrew’s not entirely sure what it is about this particular day, this moment, that makes him kiss Neil. Maybe it’s the look on Neil’s face when Andrew presents him with a key to the Maserati. He drops it to the floor when Neil doesn’t immediately take it. “It is just a key,” he says, despite knowing full well Neil’s fixation with keys and what they represent to him. It hasn’t exactly escaped Andrew’s notice how often Neil clutches his keys, pressing them into his palm, like a fucking safety blanket or something. And Andrew has just handed him another to his collection; that’s a third key for Neil’s keychain gifted by Andrew personally. So whose fault is it really?

Andrew should know better, and he _does_ , and yet…

He listens as Neil tries to explain in that way of his, offering glimpses of a relentless adolescence spent on the run, never having anything of his own. “You gave me a key and called it home,” Neil says. “I haven’t had a home since my parents died.”

And there’s that _look_ again, one that makes Andrew forcibly push Neil’s face away so he can’t see it, so it can’t touch him. “Don’t look at me like that. I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren’t mine.” It’s the truth. Andrew isn’t fool enough to think that he and Neil can save each other. They shouldn’t even try.

“I’m not looking for an answer. I just want—” Neil cuts himself off and gestures, and Andrew waits for him to try and finish that train of thought; Neil has _no_ idea what he wants. Andrew watches while Neil struggles with himself and he almost sighs, because Neil is a _mess_. An absolute fucking disaster, in fact. He’s clearly still rattled by the locker incident from the previous nights’ game, not to mention the chilling birthday message written in blood on the bathroom walls. Neil’s lies are fast catching up with him and he is holding on by the barest of threads, and for whatever reason, he has latched onto Andrew like he can hold Neil together. And damn it, Andrew sort of _wants_ to.

When Neil finally finds his voice, it’s to say, “I’m tired of being nothing,” and Andrew can feel his resolve weakening.

He hates Neil, he hates him so, _so_ much. He tells him as much and then has to deal with Neil’s smartass responses, and so maybe in the end, the _real_ reason why he kisses Neil is just to get him to stop talking for one measly minute.

And it works. It works a treat.

They kiss, Andrew’s hands on Neil’s face, and Andrew registers the movement when Neil starts reaching for his jaw. But then he stops, and clutches Andrew’s sleeve instead. Always so aware of Andrew’s boundaries, even when Neil himself is taken by surprise, and Andrew pulls back because, well, what about Neil’s?

“Tell me no,” he says. _Tell me no, and then we can never cross this line again. Tell me no, and everything will be so much easier._

Neil takes too long to say anything at all, which finally gives Andrew the presence of mind to remove Neil’s hand from his coat sleeve and retreat out of Neil’s space. “I am not doing this with you right now,” he manages to say.

And Neil — because Neil can never leave well enough alone — asks why.

“Because you’re too stupid to tell me no.”

“And you don’t want me to tell you yes?”

“This isn’t yes. This is a nervous breakdown. I know the difference even if you don’t,” Andrew says, and he can’t look at Neil yet; he rubs his thumb across his lip like he can undo the kiss. He wonders if Neil noticed that Andrew didn’t exactly answer the question. “I won’t be like them. I won’t let you let me be.”

Because Neil’s a mess, and Andrew won’t accept the absence of a no as consent. If he’s going to do this, then he needs a real yes, the likes of which Andrew never had the option to give. He doesn’t want to _take_. He wants permission.

Neil leaves shortly after, and Andrew hears him pick his new key up off the floor on his way to the door. Once he’s gone, Andrew lays flat on his back and watches the clouds drift through the sky. It’s a long time before he leaves the roof.

* * *

 

The problem Andrew has now is that Neil won’t stop looking at him. Of course, this isn’t _entirely_ new. Neil has always been prone to staring. It’s just that now there’s an added weight to it that wasn’t there before. Andrew doesn’t even think that Neil can help it, which somehow makes it worse; it’s like he’s suddenly innately attuned to Andrew’s presence and whenever he so much as crosses a room, he can feel Neil tracking him. It’s infuriating because Andrew knows Neil is thinking about the kiss every time he looks at him, and Andrew doesn’t know what he wants to do with that information. Oh, but wait, yes he does. He wants _nothing_. And Neil keeps on staring just the same.

It’s not even like he can call Neil out on it either because that would just alert the other Foxes, and their attention is the last thing Andrew wants. Besides, Andrew would rather just leave it alone altogether. Nothing will come of it, and Neil doesn’t swing, and a plethora of other very valid reasons to just squash it deep, deep down with everything else. So many reasons, in fact, that Andrew doesn’t even have to pick his favourite; they’re all so good.

Neil is a Bad Idea.

But try telling him that.

One Wednesday, Aaron invites himself to Andrew’s session with Bee, because apparently Aaron is just full of surprises these days. Andrew doesn’t quite have enough in him to react, but even he has to admit that it’s a bold move. Ultimately though, Andrew just doesn’t want Aaron there and gives him nothing during the session, but then again Aaron isn’t exactly forthcoming either. Precisely what Aaron’s motives for attending are as yet unclear, even though he insists that the shared sessions continue. If he suddenly wants them to play happy families then he’s off to a rocky start, because he and Andrew still aren’t speaking, and Aaron starts spending even less time at the dorms than he did before.

Which means that on Friday when they should be going to Columbia, they’re stuck at Fox Tower instead, and Nicky brings Neil around to their room (because of _course_ he does). Andrew allows himself to be roped into playing a video game with Nicky, secretly glad of the distraction. If he’s looking at the screen, he’s not looking at Neil, and looking at Neil is becoming increasingly dangerous — especially when Neil is looking _back_.

Kevin, because he is nothing if not consistent, soon drags Neil off to the bedroom to watch Exy games, and he shuts the door behind them. Andrew’s eyes flicker to the closed door and then back to the screen.

Before long, Nicky is whining about his wasted Friday night.

“I wanted to go dancing,” he laments. “I wanted _ice cream_.”

Andrew doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a near thing. “So go to the store and get some.”

Nicky brightens. “You’ll take me?”

“No,” Andrew says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Nicky pouts for a moment, annoyed, then gets to his feet. “I’ll ask Neil.” He heads to the bedroom and pokes his head inside, and Andrew listens as Nicky berates Neil and Kevin for spending a Friday night on Exy. Nicky doesn’t so much ask Neil to take him, but rather tells him he’s going, and Andrew hears the surprise in Neil’s voice when he finds out Nicky can’t drive the Maserati.

As Nicky has a little verbal tussle with Kevin, Andrew gets up to join Nicky in the doorway. He doesn’t think Nicky will succeed in talking Neil into abandoning his Exy obsession for the night, but he’s sort of curious to watch him try. When he peers in at them, though, Neil is looking down at his phone, an indecipherable expression on his face.

Neil looks up and catches sight of Andrew in the doorway. He watches Andrew for what feels like an endless minute, then he seems to come to a decision and snaps his phone shut. “What kind do you want?” Neil asks an incredulous Kevin, and Andrew retreats to his bean bag chair once more. Interesting.

Kevin doesn’t come out of the bedroom while Nicky and Neil are out, probably stewing over Neil’s decision to leave, and Andrew leaves him to it. He doesn’t move from his spot, just stares at a fixed point on the wall until a key in the lock alerts him to the return of Neil and his cousin.

Nicky hands Andrew his pint and a spoon, and Andrew begins methodically rolling the pint between his hands. Neil, his own ice cream in hand, is yet to make a move to sit down, and when Andrew gives Nicky his implicit permission to go and peruse Matt’s DVD collection, Neil immediately locks the door behind him before kneeling in front of Andrew.

“Question,” Neil says, and then seems to take an age to actually figure out what he wants to ask. Andrew still hasn’t properly looked at Neil, but he’s pretty sure he knows what this is going to be about. “When you said you don’t like being touched, is it because you don’t like it all or because you don’t trust anyone else enough to let them touch you?”

The phrasing is enough to get Andrew to glance Neil’s way. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t ask.”

“It doesn’t matter to a man who doesn’t swing.”

And that’s the crux of the issue, that’s why Neil is such a conundrum, because he _doesn’t_ swing. He said as much back in May when Nicky had asked, and Andrew believed him, even when everything else about Neil was sending up red flags.

So now, as Andrew listens to Neil’s explanation about not letting anyone close enough to be able to stab him in the back, he wonders why it’s different for him, especially when Neil rounds off his speech with, “But I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” Someone like Neil shouldn’t trust anyone.

But Neil isn’t easily deterred, and Andrew feels like he’s on a cliff edge, trying to decide whether or not to jump. Just when Andrew thinks he has Neil all figured out, he throws something else into the mix and Andrew is left trying to assemble all the pieces of what makes Neil... well,  _Neil_.

“I’m still waiting for an answer,” Neil says.

“I’m still waiting for a yes or no I actually believe,” Andrew replies.

Without the slightest hesitation, Neil says, “Yes,” and takes the pint of ice cream from Andrew. He leans in, and Andrew doesn’t move, waiting to see what Neil does. He stops, and Andrew knows it's because he's completely unwilling to cross any of Andrew's lines unless he's given permission to do so, a courtesy which Andrew has never been shown before. Even Roland, who Andrew knows doesn't mean him any harm, could never quite keep his hands to himself. Andrew shifts the tiniest amount, but he can tell that Neil notices.

Neil reaches a hand towards Andrew’s face and then stops again, so Andrew snags his wrist and gives it a warning squeeze.

“It’s fine if you hate me,” Neil says, and perhaps it’s this, more than anything, that settles Andrew’s resolve.

“Good. Because I do.” He really, really does.

He pushes Neil down to the floor, following him as he goes, and pins Neil’s hand down, shortly joined by the other one when Neil makes another aborted reach for Andrew. He won’t let go of Neil’s hands; he needs to know where they are. “Stay,” he says, then finally — _finally_ — leans down to kiss Neil.

Andrew always knew that Neil was going to be trouble, and _this_... 

It feels like stepping off the edge.

It feels like falling.


End file.
